Tavistock Street Pastors

Jo Wright and Gareth Jones from Tavistock Street Pastors explain how the team provides the charity’s core values of caring, listening and helping people. 

Street Pastors was founded by Les Isaac and started in Brixton, South London in 2003, when a group of church volunteers went out on the streets to talk to people and try to make a difference to the volume of knife crime. The scheme’s success spread and teams sprang up elsewhere, dealing with other local issues such as anti-social behaviour and alcohol-related problems. Currently more than 240 UK towns and cities have Street Pastor teams, with a growing number in other countries as well. Street Pastors is now one of the initiatives run by Ascension Trust, a Christian inter-denominational organisation, whose mission is ‘to mobilise the Church to make a positive contribution to society and to improve the quality of life of the disadvantaged and vulnerable’.

Street Pastors was initiated by Roger Bird and Graham Boot-Handford in Tavistock 12 years ago, starting with night-time patrols on Friday or Saturday nights to engage with vulnerable people, and provide help and support. Jo Wright was in the first cohort trained to go out on the streets – she is now one of the Tavistock co-ordinators and still just as passionate about the role. She explained that she was once one of the people binge-drinking at weekends, until one night she met Sam – her Mr Wright - he was a Christian and as their relationship grew, she became a Christian too, changing her life for ever. They married a couple of years later and regularly go out on street patrol together.

In 2008, Gareth was a chronic alcoholic and was rushed to hospital with advanced cirrhosis of the liver. By chance, whilst recovering at home afterwards, he came across a TV programme which resulted in him turning to Christianity. His liver made an amazing recovery and he enrolled on an access course, followed by ten years of online study for a Bachelor of Divinity Degree. He now volunteers as a daytime street pastor.

A typical night-time session in Tavistock starts with a prayer meeting at 9:30pm led by the prayer pastors on duty at Abbey Chapel, and then at 10pm three or four street pastors go out together to start their rounds through Tavistock Meadows and past the bars. At midnight they return to base, where the prayer pastor gives them tea and cake before they go out on patrol again, finishing anytime from 1am to 4am depending on the situation. They carry water for people who have had too much to drink, flip flops for people who can’t walk home in their high-heels, a dustpan and brush comes in handy for sweeping up broken glass, and lollipops are a key item - their many uses range from a simple source of sugar, to building up trust and even diffusing a tense scene.

Street pastors never seek to preach but are happy to answer questions about their faith and will also offer to pray with people - the offer is rarely refused and regularly helps to comfort someone in trouble. They never know what they will come across and Jo has been involved in helping inebriated or vulnerable people get home safely after a night out, giving first-aid, waiting with injured people until the ambulance arrives, or simply listening to someone and signposting them to an organisation that can provide the help they need. They never give advice, but the care they provide can be physical, mental or spiritual, and in some cases may well be life-saving.

Their work brings the volunteers in contact with many young people, and over time their ‘softly, softly’ approach has built up strong rapports in the community. Before the pandemic some of the volunteers also worked as school pastors, carrying out a weekly lunchtime patrol at Tavistock College, helping isolated pupils or preventing altercations. Street pastors often see first-hand the struggles that young people can be involved in at an early age and Jo would like to find additional ways of supporting them.

Tavistock Street Pastors works closely with the councils, police, Salvation Army and many other organisations, although information disclosed by the public remains confidential unless there is a legal requirement to share it. A strong Christian faith is an integral part of the role and street pastors have to have been a member of a church community for at least a year - most local churches are represented in the Tavistock branch. New street pastors take a ten-week training course covering a wide variety of topics, such as drugs, alcohol, body language, conflict management, youth culture and basic first-aid. New volunteers are welcome from members of any local church, or anyone can join a street pastor patrol as an observer. For more information go to streetpastors.org/locations/tavistock or email tavistock@streetpastors.org.uk